Furukawa's research project - or one of them, anyway - was to try to grow cucumbers in the ISS. I wonder how that went?

Satoshi Furukawa is set to blast off early on Wednesday for a half-year stint in orbit along with Sergei Volkov, a Russian, and Michael Fossum, an American. He said he would be growing cucumbers to research how future space explorers could harvest their own food.

"We wish we were able to eat the cucumbers, but we have not been allowed," he said on the launchpad in Kazakhstan. Millions of concerned consumers across Europe have been spurning cucumbers in the wake of an E coli outbreak blamed on contaminated vegetables.